From Atheist to Catholic

‘Unshakable’ Rationalist Blogged Her Way Into the Church

Jennifer Fulwiler “always thought it was obvious that God did not
exist.”

Fulwiler grew up a content atheist.
Having a profound respect for knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge,
Fulwiler was convinced that religion and reason were incompatible. Not
surprisingly, she was also emphatically anti-Christian and, especially,
anti-Catholic. “Catholic beliefs seemed bizarre and weird,” she says.

Fulwiler would have been astonished
to know that she and Joe Fulwiler, her husband, would come to embrace those
“bizarre,” “weird” beliefs. On Easter 2007, they entered the Catholic Church
with deep joy and a sense of coming home — and a blog aided their conversion.

There is always a first step
that leads to belief in God. What was yours?

Thanks to meeting and knowing my
husband, I learned that belief in God is not fundamentally unreasonable. We met
at the high-tech company where we both worked. Joe believed in God — something
that, fortunately, I didn’t know for a while.

Why was that fortunate?

To me, belief in God was so unreasonable
that, by definition, no reasonable person could believe in such a thing. I felt
I could never be compatible with someone that unreasonable. Had I known that
Joe believed in God, I would never have dated him.

What was your reaction when you
found out?

It gave me pause. Joe is too smart —
brilliant, really, with degrees from Yale, Columbia and Stanford — to believe
in something nonsensical. I also met many of his friends. They, too, are highly
intelligent — some with M.D.s and Ph.D.s from schools like Harvard and
Princeton — and believed.

None of this made me believe in God,
of course, but I could no longer say that only unreasonable or unintelligent
people believe.

What caused you to consider the
question more seriously?

I have always been a truth-seeker,
which is why I was an atheist. But I had a prideful, arrogant way of
approaching questions about life and meaning. I now realize that pride is the
most effective way to block out God so that one doesn’t see him at all.
Certainly, I didn’t.

The birth of our first child
motivated me to seek the truth with humility. I can’t emphasize this point
enough: Humility, true humility, is crucial to the conversion process.

Most atheists are unchanged
after their children’s births. Why were you so affected?

First, I had already begun thinking
about the possibility of God’s existence. After our son’s birth, I wanted to
know the truth about life’s great questions — for his sake. For the first time,
I was motivated to seek truth with true humility. For example, I began reading,
studying, and thinking about the great minds. Most, if not the majority,
believed in some other world, some higher power, a god or gods — something.
Even the great pre-Christian thinkers like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates
believed.

Another avenue of exploration: I
always revered the great scientists, including the founders of the significant
branches of science. Very few were atheists. Indeed, some of the greatest were
profoundly believing Christians.

It could be argued this was
because they were steeped in the Christian culture and beliefs of their
times.

That ignores a larger question I
began asking myself: Is it really likely that great minds like Galileo, Newton,
Kepler, Descartes and others didn’t know how to ask tough questions? Do these
people seem to be men who didn’t know how to question assumptions and
fearlessly seek truth? Of course not.

Was your husband a help in this
process?

Eventually, but not at first.
Religion wasn’t something we talked about. Joe was a non-churchgoing Baptist,
which was fine by me. In fact, since I was an atheist, I considered not talking
about God to be a good compromise. Our lives were completely secular — just
like our wedding.

No church wedding?

Definitely not! I wore a purple
dress; we married in a theater with a friend officiating, using vows we wrote
ourselves. The ceremony took seven minutes, then we all partied all night long.
In fact, we didn’t even technically get married at our wedding: We did that at
city hall a few days before.

Was there ever an aha moment
that finally made you abandon atheism?

Several, but one in particular
actually shocked me.

I asked myself two questions: What
is information? And: Can information ever come from a non-intelligent source?

It was a shocking moment for me
because I had to confront the fact that DNA is information. If I remained an
atheist, I would have to believe that all the intricate, detailed, complex
information contained in DNA comes out of nowhere and nothing.

But I also knew that idea did not
make sense. After all, I don’t look at billboards — which contain much simpler
information than DNA — and think that wind and erosion created them. That
wouldn’t be rational. Suddenly, I found that I was a very discomfited atheist.

Is that the point at which you
began to believe in God?

No. But now I was a reluctant
atheist. I had lots of questions but knew no one who might have answers: I had
always consciously, deliberately distanced myself from believers. So, coming
from the high-tech world, where did I go for answers? I put up a blog, of
course! I started posting tough questions on my blog.

One matter stood out from the
beginning: The best, most thoughtful responses came from Catholics.
Incidentally, their answers were consistently better than the ones from
atheists. It intrigued me that Catholics could handle anything I threw at them.
Also, their responses reflected such an eminently reasonable worldview that I
kept asking myself: How is it that Catholics have so much of this all figured
out?

Was your husband helpful to you
at this point?

As I started telling Joe some of the
answers that I was getting, especially from Catholics, his own interest in
religion — and Catholicism — was piqued. We have always been a great team, so
it was wonderful that we were exploring these issues and questions together,
especially since we were so anti-Catholic.

Both of you?

Yes. I thought the Church’s views on
most things, but especially marriage, contraception and abortion (since I was
then ardently pro-choice), were simply crazy. Joe’s anti-Catholicism, while
different, was stronger and more settled. He didn’t understand any Catholic
doctrine or apologetics, so he fell into a stereotyped view of Catholics,
thinking that they made idols of the pope and Mary, etc. Also, it never really
occurred to him to take seriously the idea that Jesus founded one Church. He
just assumed the way to pick a church is to find one that fits your
personality.

Your conversion has impacted
your daily life. What change, in particular, stands out in your mind?

Community!
There is nothing like it in atheism. I never understood what people meant by
members of the Church being part of the body of Christ, but now I really get
it. By being part of the one, holy Catholic Church, there is a palpable
connection I now have with other Catholics, even people I don’t know. It’s been
amazing to experience that connection and community.

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